Effects of world market oriented regional integration on developing countries

The inward-oriented wave of regionalisation in the mid-sixties in the so-called developing countries was judged, twenty years later, to have been a failure almost everywhere. Since the beginning of the nineties a new trend towards regionalisation has been emerging, this time more strongly oriented towards world markets. Do the new regional integration agreements complement the economic and development policy effects aimed at by the structural adjustment programmes of the international financial institutions? What effects do they have on the economic development and the industrialisation of the countries involved?     

Exploring group decision making in a power-to-take experiment

Most studies that compare individual and group behavior neglect the in-group decision making process. This paper explores the decision making process within groups in a strategic setting: a two player power-to-take experiment. Discussions preceding group decisions are video taped and analyzed. We find the following: (1) no impact of the group setting as such on individual behavior; (2) heterogeneity of individual types; (3) perceptions of fairness are hardly discussed and are prone to the self-serving bias; (4) groups ignore the decision rule of other groups and typically view them as if they were single agents. (5) We also show that to explain group outcomes two factors have to be taken into account that are often neglected: the distribution of individual types over groups and the decision rules that groups use to arrive at their decision. JEL Classification A12 · C72 · C91 · C92     

Neutral versus loaded instructions in a bribery experiment

This paper contributes to the ongoing methodological debate on context-free versus in-context presentation of experimental tasks. We report an experiment using the paradigm of a bribery experiment. In one condition, the task is presented in a typical bribery context, the other one uses abstract wording. Though the underlying context is heavily loaded with negative ethical preconceptions, we do not find significant differences with our 18 independent observations per treatment. We conjecture that the experimental design transmits the essential features of a bribery situation already with neutral framing, such that the presentation does not add substantially to subjects’ interpretation of the task. JEL Classification C91 · D62 · D72 · D73 · K42     

Estimating the marginal costs of airport operation using multivariate time series models with correlated error terms

This paper explores insights about marginal airport costs that can be gained by analysing labour inputs and their variability. Based on hourly cost and traffic data for the airport of Helsinki, a multivariate time series approach is used incorporating correlated error terms to account for random shocks such as delays. We found for most airport services a linear relationship between labour input and aircraft movements, except for producing passenger services for international departing flights where a cubic cost relationship was estimated. The findings are comparable with earlier studies for US airports.     

Longitudinal Surveys and the Study of Occupational Mobility: Panel and Retrospective Design in Comparison

The paper discusses the extent to which longitudinal surveys are able to expose occupational mobility and the dynamics of these processes. It compares two survey designs: the repeated panel design and the retrospective life history design. This comparison details the strength and the weaknesses of the two designs. The paper particularly calls attention to the unique features of the two designs with respect to the exploration of occupational mobility – pointing to three general problems of quantitative social research: item-nonresponse, design effects of single and multi-measurement occasion, and the strong assumption that researchers and respondents share the same definition of concepts. The main conclusion of the paper is that both designs offer unique opportunities to study social change, yet the differences between the two should be kept in mind when choosing the data set for particular research questions.     

Social capital as a heuristic device to explore sociocultural sustainability: a case study of mountain resort tourism in the community of Steamboat Springs,Colorado, USA

This study investigates the feasibility of combining environmental protection and an agricultural revitalisation strategy which includes food tourism in two Danish national parks, Mols Bjerge and Skjern Aadal. Both the parks include significant agricultural holdings and, to a great extent, a “natural” landscape of farmed grassland and arable land. The international research literature documents that park administrations have tended to neglect the role of food and food-based experiences in parks, despite park visitors preferring more attractive eating facilities, purchasing opportunities and food-related interpretation. A survey of food producers and providers in Denmark revealed that traditional, productivity-oriented farmers tended to oppose the establishment of parks, holding the view that “sharing” the land with others diminished their competitiveness. While this view might hamper rapid progress in food tourism, the survey also discovered an emerging trend of small-scale food entrepreneurship, albeit on a fragmented and uncoordinated level. Tourism-oriented food entrepreneurs wanted to see joint marketing and labelling of food products along the lines of OECD's (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) “new rural paradigm”. The study identified governance opportunities that could accommodate the wellbeing of both tourists and food producers, but which requires a proactive role from the national park authorities, especially in marketing and the development of events.     

Why is TFP growth sectorally concentrated?

Research shows that total factor productivity (TFP) growth is weak in European countries. This is inter alia attributed to the fact that substantial TFP growth is limited to a few industries. Because TFP growth is typically understood as technological progress, it is concluded that technology diffusion between sectors in Europe is hampered. We use EU KLEMS data sets to decompose sectoral TFP for nine European countries by means of a Malmquist approach in order to identify potential sources besides technical progress. Applying Harberger diagrams, we describe the sectoral distribution of TFP growth, efficiency gains and losses, economies of scale and technological progress. The analysis reveals that technological progress is quite evenly distributed across sectors in most European countries. The wide scattering of TFP growth is explained by deviating efficiency developments and the unused economies of scale. We conclude that the technology transfer between sectors in most European countries seems to work. Therefore, Europe in general does not need a new technology policy, but a further integration of the markets and a reduction of national market entry barriers. This requires further unification of pan-European standards in fields like trade and crafts codes or consumer protection policies.     

Transport and CO2: Productivity Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the European Commercial Transport Industry

In the last decades transport activities persistently increased in the EU27 and were strongly coupled to growth in gross domestic product. Like most production processes, they are inevitably linked with the generation of environmentally hazardous by-products, such as CO₂ emissions. This leads to the question of how to promote a sustainable transport sector that meets both environmental protection targets and economic requirements. In this context, the objective of this paper is to compare the CO₂-sensitve productivity development of the European commercial transport industry for the period between 1995 and 2006. We calculate a Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index to investigate the effects of country-specific regulations on productivity and to identify innovative countries. Our results show a high variation in the CO₂-sensitive productivity development and a slight productivity decrease on average. Efficiency losses indicate that the majority of the countries were not able to follow the technological improvements induced by some innovative countries.     

Inhaltliche Koordination 2-2008

Ohne Zusammenfassung Mag. Heike Kurzmann Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Marketing und Handel an der Universit?t St. Gallen